Greedy Goblin

Thursday, February 13, 2014

Dancing naked

I ran another WoW project. It started when my girlfriend who still mostly plays WoW noticed something that we had to check out. So I resubscribed and leveled up to 90. What can I say about that? Grouping with randoms remained the same experience that I remembered:

WoW Armory has a character feed that gives a step-by-step record of what you are doing in WoW with timecodes, verifying everything written here.

I reached top level on Friday, see "Dynamic Duo" on the feed.

I bought a honor PvP helm from leftover honor points, put on two crafted PvP items plus PvE boots from the Sha of Anger quest. That was all my "gearing up", all the other gear were random leveling items.

On Saturday we started playing 2v2 Arenas with my girlfriend, obtaining a latest season arena trinket. Then there was that game error where you get stuck loading at 90% and we couldn't play more.

In the evening I could log back in, won a Tol Barad and a random BG, getting enough honor a honor trinket

On Sunday we played more arenas, while I was tagging along with her doing the Timeless Isle quests. PvE gear showered from the odd creatures slain.

By the afternoon of Sunday, I reached 10000 Conquest points that allowed me to buy ring, staff, bracers and pants:

The mentioned first trinket, ring, staff, bracers and pants are Ilvl 522. This is the highest available gear for PvP, as you can see them equipped on this 2700 Arena rating resto druid. Considering this, I must be awesome beyond words. I mean I resubscribed WoW after months of not playing, returned to a class I haven't played for years and equipped only with leveling trash items I could obtain rewards in an insane rate that were matching the best of the best. Can anyone outdo this excellent performance?

The point of the post is that everyone can. The arena system has the usual rating, so you are matched with equal opponents, giving you 50% winrate.

For every win, you get 180 conquest points. The point is that no matter how bad your performance is, you win every second game, since you are matched against an equally horrible team. An arena queue is about 1 min (just enough to kill one elite on the island) and the battle itself is 2 minutes maximum. This means that you can get 10 wins in an hour, farming 1800 conquest points. At the start your rating is 1500, so you should tank it to 5-600, by dancing naked in the arena. This is where the title comes from: once upon a time "dancing naked" was something that very small kids did in capital cities. Now, dancing naked is the way to get the highest available PvP rewards.

And it's not just PvP. As you can see, without even putting my feet into a single PvE raid, I'm "qualified" to the third group of raids, due to my item level, boosted by the 522 items I gained from the Arena. If we'd perform horribly for another 5 hours to get all the conquest points, I could be qualified to the most recent raids too - obviously without the slightest clue what to do:

Why did I pay subscription and spent time just to prove that WoW sinked so low that you can literally get the best PvP rewards without any skills or even spending significant time? To remind EVE players what can happen to a once great game if the developers start listening to bad players who demand "accessible" and "fun" PvP. WoW wasn't always like that. Once upon a time you could only get conquest points (therefore top PvP gear) if you had decent rating in the Arena. For scrubs only honor gear was available. For a long time bad WoW players were whining that they are stomped in battlegrounds because "they have no gear" until Blizzard started to give out the best PvP gear for zero performance. They killed battlegrounds in the meantime, since they give honor points, which give Ilvl 496 gear (like my helm), so there isn't much reason to go there as better gear can be obtained faster from Arenas.

We see the same trend starting in EVE. Bad players were whining that the T1 ships available to them are stomped by T2 and faction (especially pirate) ships. Instead of telling them to "learn to play and then you can afford a Cynabal", CCP buffed the T1 ships to the widespread acclaim of the scrubs. Now destroyer and T1 cruiser gangs roam EVE and "having fun". They bring in their scrub friends to play EVE since it's "fun". But these even worse players will start demanding even more nerfs, since the game is still not "accessible" enough. If CCP continues on this road, soon we'll have spirit healers that respawn the lost ships so the players can instantly rejoin the "fun". Then, after losing all the good players, and the game degraded to meaningless "good fights", it will start losing subscribers like WoW (30% lost since the peak) and die. Please watch this video that perfectly explains why.

The battle of B-R happened at the 24th hour. The influx of new players may convince CCP that their successful niche is in impact PvP and a dark universe where the scrub is obliterated. Maybe they revert these horrible changes and send T1 ships back to where they belong. Actually it doesn't need any ship balance change, just remove the insurance feature, which makes losing T1 ships literally free of cost. But the point is not in technical details. The point is that if CCP keeps listening to scrubs who demand "fun, accessible PvP", in a few years it will be like WoW: you can get anything just for logging in.

PS: "fun, accessible PvP" is what RvB is doing in Josameto. They have those silly rules that guarantees that fights are "fun". Lemmings went there and butchered them like sheep. While most of them were lolling in worthless crap, some had somewhat decentpods. Come, join Lemmings in massacring Goons and their "fun ppl" pets.

68 comments:

Not to nitpick, but the BR you linked where lemmings apparently "slaughtered RvB like sheep" is actually just random indies not belonging to RvB and RvB on RvB kills... The Indies making up all the isk werent even killed by lemmings... come on, you're not that dumb... are you?

The BR you want to look at is when lemmings actually engaged an RvB fleet and... died. https://zkillboard.com/related/30000157/201402122100/

Also you might want to look up this campaign: http://purple.rvbeve.com/?a=cc_detail&ctr_id=127

RvB has a 44.3% efficiency against lemmings as of this writing and there's only about 30-40 active lemmings taking the brunt of all the kills against that alliance. If you're going to lie about how the campaign is going you could at least try to be less obvious about it...

I was with you, but wondering why once again you sought to point out that wow is a theme park. Seemed redundant, we all know wow is a theme park.

Then you jumped the shark. You continued on with your flawed argument that T1 ships were somehow buffed to be better than T2 or pirate ships, showing your complete lack of understanding of Tiericide or indeed the very role ships have to play in eve online.

Within each ship line, ships used to have a tier. This was good on paper, newbs would fly the newb tier ships, as you got better you had progression. The fact was that nobody did this. Within each line one ship was used per race if you were lucky. Entire ships were unused or only used in lol theme fleets.

Tiericide removes the tiers and makes each ship useful WITHIN that ship line. T2 is still immensely more powerful than T1 *at the T2's specialty*. the progression from Frigs to Cruisers to Battleships and beyond is still a case of "guns get bigger, tank gets bigger, ship gets slower, it gets harder to hit smaller things". None of that changed.

So you fail at the facts and the rest of your article falls to pieces. Shame really. It could have been a great "wow is a themepark" article.

EVE's gameplay always was inspired by the Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizard-Spock methodology, namely that no single fit or gang composition should be invincible within its level. For the longest time, however, that wasn't true - for example, the Rifter was /the/ PvP frigate, and only hardcore people or maniacs flew something else. Tiericide changed that - suddenly each race had at least one ship suitable for the job. That these new T1 ships then proceeded to be powerful enough to take on T2 ships, as long as the T1s were flown by /skilled pilots/ was a nice side effect.

There's a game design aspect to it, too: tiericide made it possible for newer players to sensibly support the veterans in their T2s and T3s. Theme parks MMOs offer insta-level 80s because there aren't enough people left in the lower-level zones to provide actual MMO game play - all the cool stuff happens in the "end game". And since they are locked into level- and gear-progression, insta-leveling was the only way out.

EVE had the opportunity to balance the power spread between niblets and veterans in the opposite direction, and took it.

Another aspect: it is easy to deflect a loss in a PvP fight with the excuse "he had better gear than I did". Tiericide in EVE destroyed that excuse: you can kill a T2 ship with your T1, /if/ your player skills are good enough.

And for that reason, the only players who want tiericide undone, are the truly bad ones.

Although I agree getting rewards in wow is super easy, that doesn't at all diminish the quality of the pvp game. Arena in wow is definitely one of the best made pvp experiences ever.

You see wow is still an mmo, and that is why they have the "pretension' that you need to farm for gear. They would actually prefer it that pvp gear is not even farmed just given away. As in EVE you can get all the good gear you want, that will not make you a good pvper. They made it this way so the only contributing factor for your rating in arena, is your real pvp skills, and not gear or in game skills. Now if you get that gear and steamroll higher skilled players, then that becomes a problem. As long as skill is the most contributing factor in winning, the system can't fail.

And the link between it and EVE is strenuous at best. You keep making these assumptions about how obvious different things are the same, and use it to prove a point you have. The cruiser re balance was one of the better changes in EVE, and richer more skilled player can still easily kill a poorer less skill player.

@Druur, Dado: WoW and EVE *are* MMOs, and not turn based games like Counterstrike or Starcraft. In those games you get "gear" for free at the start of the game, and only your skill matters.

However MMOs live on the idea of being able to either smartly get or dumbly grind gear and win via it. If you can win by just skill, there is no reason to play the game any longer than a month and that is happening in WoW, players leaving in millions.

By tiericide the reason to log in and rat was destroyed. You are either "skilled" or not. The only reason people (besides lolkids) still play the game is that capitals were not rebalanced *yet* and B-R proved that in the game of the big boys, they matter.

@Professor Clio: sure, you managed to find one BR when RvB blobbed Lemmings 2v1 and killed an unrelated Mackinaw. The total Lemmings losses were half of either pods of yesterday. And I *totally* believe your corp killboard and not the January Zkillboard data that gave 13.3B kills, 7.3B deaths (65% ISK ratio)

You missed the point of ship rebalancing. Before, pretty much every class had a ship or two to fly in and everything else was useless. Ccp wanted to give EACH ship a role it can be good at. That includes t1 ships. Their goal is to have t1 being somewhat focused on some roles, but not as powerful as t2, which are highly specialized. Now t1 has some worth. It is still worse than t2, but at least there is a reason to fly it. And if someone is really good, he can destroy t2 in t1. Giving each game entity a meaning is a good game design. It's pretty much the opposite of wow.

Tiericide isn't about T1 being better than T2. And it's not the effect it's had. If you think T1 ships are better than T2 ships, I suggest you see how Vexxors stack up against Ishtars, or how Stabbers and Ruptures rate against Vagas and Muninns.

What Tiericide did was remove the 'you need Minmatar Battleship III to fly the Maelstrom, so you fly the Typhoon, then the Tempest, then the Maelstrom', when really, each of those ships already had vastly different application. (Ex: the Tempest was a baby marauder, able to pack a tractor and salvager into its extra high slots. Best application? No, but it was the one CCP actually was suggesting at the time.)

Now, the T1 ships lead directly to their T2 counterparts. The support cruisers (Augoror, Exequoror, Osprey, Scythe) give the pilot who hasn't spent 30 days training (Racial) Cruisers V a reason to train the skills to fly logistics, and more importantly, the ability to fulfill that role in a fleet or small gang.

Attack cruisers have a different playstyle than Combat cruisers - one that's carried through into HACs, so you don't have a pilot who flies Ruptures get into a Vaga and wonder why it's not a tanky face-melter. And now that they're not a 'progression', people don't get trained as newbs to think one playstyle is 'better' than the other, when really, they're both very situational.

Well it seems wailing already started about making supercaps more useless. Becose "power projection not fun, m'kay?", "travel by gates for hours is fun, m'kay?", and some usual craptalk about "small gang pvp is dead so nerf supers and it will be good becos supers a bad, m'kay?"

@Druur: you might noticed that there aren't successful FPS MMOS. FPS games (where only skill matters) are "buy the box" titles. Why?

Because hand-eye coordination "skills" are more or less given and can't be improved significantly. Your reaction time is decided on the genetic level. So in about a month you find your place in ranking ladder and you won't move from there, so there isn't really way for improving your play.

MMOs on the other hand thrive on improvement that you achieve by getting more knowledge about the game and by grinding. Simplifying the game by homogenizing classes and giving out welfare epics is killing this.

Both WoW and EVE are doing this. In WoW the difference between a mage, a hunter and a moonkin is barely the color and name of their spells. Gear is given out. In EVE ships were "tiericided" and T1 ships were meant for cheap newbie ships are now useful, despite the hulls are still literally free due to insurance.

Uhm, reading the comments here a lot of people seem to have a pretty different perspective towards those t1 changes..

You talk as if no one did fly t1. I did solo in the vendor, the arbitrator, the prophecy, Drake, thorax when I did piracy in 2007 and following. The secret back then was to know "what can I engage with this" and to know when to engage and run. To be able to use a t1 ship to its full extend you would need to learn the game mechanics, but with the low prices they where merciful trainers.Engaging a t2 ship with a t1 ship was a huge gamble back then. If you wouldn't run into a total noon, you'd usually lose. So to engage the t2 ships you would have to bring a few buddies (or your own t2). Considering the enormous t2 prices (a lot higher pre-invention introduction) that was kind of fair deal. Now that t1 ships perform almost as good as t2,but the later costing a multiple of t1, this is broken. A t1 pilot has not to bring the same risk to the table when engaging, whole getting a much more valuable reward than the t2 pilot.

Also, somewhere during the changes they equalled out the races, removing the stone-scissors-rock roles from the races, killing them identities.

The cost difference is that by design. If you look closely, everything in eve is built that way. Linear progression for exponential cost. Some examples could deviate from this, but striking a perfect balance is a near impossible for such complex game.

However in the meantime they indeed buffed Vexor against Ishtar. It probably won't win 1v1. But will win 2v1, despite costing 0.1 of the Ishtar (remember insurance!)

eve isn't a game of 1v1, or 2v1. In a PROPER FLEET COMPOSITION, one centered around Ishtars, even if in those 2 fleets the vexors out number the ishtars significantly, the ishtars will win. You really need to stop considering ships in isolation and how they work in fleets. Because you really don't get it. Restating the same flawed position over and over again doesn't make you right.

Now that t1 ships perform almost as good as t2,but the later costing a multiple of t1, this is broken. A t1 pilot has not to bring the same risk to the table when engaging, whole getting a much more valuable reward than the t2 pilot.

Bullshit. In the roles the t2's are designed to fly in they out perform their T1 counterparts significantly.

Where the T1 might shine is that the T1 is slightly more generalized, and you are more likely to go balls deep in one due to the cost. Greater utility can .. can lead to a superior battlefield performance, IF the actual pilot skill (not skill points, actual skills, orbit mechanics, range dictation, control) are up to the engagement.

And still people think that t3 ships like a proteus are overpowered while the cost /power ratio is even worse.But then again it isn't made by moongoo so the rmt nullsec lords wouldn't mind getting them nerfed.

"However in the meantime they indeed buffed Vexor against Ishtar. It probably won't win 1v1. But will win 2v1, despite costing 0.1 of the Ishtar (remember insurance!)"

So what? If there was a linear rather than exponential increase in power regarding ship balance, there would be absolutely no balance in this game whatsoever as whoever had the biggest wallet would always win. Tiericide was not balancing ships in context of t2 hulls, it was to get rid of the ridiculous scenario where a limited number of ships in any class were useful at all.

Furthermore, you seem to have concluded that player skill is a reflection of the size of their wallet, and that low isk players are somehow less deserving of fun because they have failed to achieve whatever standard you have set for a minimum wallet level to participate in pvp. Eve is not a themepark MMO, there is no end game (unless you consider raiding end game, then you could go run incursions I guess). Conflict and engagement can and should occur at all "levels" of play, lest you create a stale, stratified environment where the richest dominate and the rest suffer. THAT would be the quickest way to kill eve.

@Gevlon"sure, you managed to find one BR when RvB blobbed Lemmings 2v1 and killed an unrelated Mackinaw. The total Lemmings losses were half of either pods of yesterday."So how come when we click the link you provided, and randomly click on kills, those appear to be Red killing Blue, nothing to do with lemmings?

Let me guess. RvB were doing what RvB do. Some lemmings jumped in and killed a couple of small ships, then ran away, claiming all kills done in that system in the same hour as their own, even though it was just RvB shooting each other. Sound about right?

If you can have meaningful PvP in "all levels" than a one month old newbie can rightfully ask "this was all?"

Surely meaningful is a scale. Meaningful FOR a newbie where isk is hard to come by CAN be losing some T1 or their first T2 ships? As they get more experienced they get better more expensive ships, their perspective on meaningful changes?

If you were to have your way everyone who wasn't flying a titan would be a worthless scrub.

If you've got 2 Vexxors and you manage to jump a solo Ishtar, yes, you might win. If there's a solo Ishtar who is engaging 2:1 odds, he's doing it wrong. That's like insisting a Proteus should always have been able to slaughter a trio of Ishtars because it can cost 3x as much (once fitted out etc).

Now add in support elements, and watch what happens.

5 Ishtars, 2 Guardians vs 10 Vexxors and 4 Augorors - no contest. The T2s have the buffer to survive the alpha, and the resists to make the repairs sustainable. The T2 logi has defense against neuts and jamming (it has the slots to carry ECCM) - not that the example fleet carries any - and can operate 5-10 km farther off from the main group, to stay out at a more advantageous range.

In that fight, the Augs die first (and fast), while the guardians can keep the Vexxors from having any significant effect on either themselves or the Ishtars.

You're thinking solely of ganking and ambush hunting, and in those situations the simple rule is: if you don't know you'll kill your prey, you don't engage. Doing so is a mistake.

One pilot attacking 2 is a mistake. He's immediately ceding the operational initiative by giving up any ability to control engagement range in a meaningful way. If he's close range, he can only chase one of them when they split up. If he's long range, he can't keep them pointed when they refuse to give chase, and just warp off. If he's just looking to kill one of them, and then bag out, then he's intentionally exposing himself to catastrophic failure by engaging in a fight he believes he can't win. If he believes he can kill both of them, then he's pretty much banking on them being fools, and relying on an underestimation of your target is an invitation to failure.

Too much chatting over Vexors and evading the point: since tiericide - just like in WoW - you can participate in significant battles and receive rewards (killmails) without risking any assets or showing any good performance. Just grab a free T1 ship (insurance repays loss) and move until you kill something with your gang. If you die, just respawn and resume.

Irony here, all the above comments are nearly all about eve it seems not wow. Gevlon your audience really has changed.

Some of us mourn wow though. It was a great game I wasnt finished with! They ruined BGS/pvp btw not with welfare arena gear for showing up, but by making pvp gear pointless. With base resill and a very low capped ilev, you would have been better off afking in the lfrs. Better gear for everything including arenas. faster season changes to, to invalidate all gear ground out. How can you make meaningful progress when they baseline your gear every 3 months?

Imagine CCP, did you guys what Blizzard have done to us: make each skill go uptp 10 with more bonuses/far better shipsship equipment locked behind skill 6-10 while skills 1-5 have their learning times reduced to 10mins-2hrs. Then repeat this everytime they did an expansion.

Too much chatting over Vexors and evading the point: since tiericide - just like in WoW - you can participate in significant battles and receive rewards (killmails) without risking any assets or showing any good performance. Just grab a free T1 ship (insurance repays loss) and move until you kill something with your gang. If you die, just respawn and resume.

No, you are wrong. Tiericide did not change behavior at all. Just instead of newbs flying after burning rifters, they can chose to fly afterburning incursus and the like instead.

There were always (and will always be) players who fly T1 frigates

There were always (and will always be) players who fly T1 cruisers, battlecruisers and battleships.

The eve battlefield has always demanded these things, and there has always been a place for these things.

The only thing tiericide did was increase the variety of these things and give newer players a *taste* of what it is like to fly some of the more specialised roles. Prior to tiericide players didn't experience what it was like managing a cap chain until they could fly a guardian. now they can experience it (without being anywhere near as effective, but they are able to _practice_ at minimal risk which is a good thing) in cheaper ships while they train for the better ships.

The talk of ishtars and vexors was to disprove your point that somehow the improvements within T1 tiers of ships has buffed T1 against T2. It hasn't. Not even slightly.

All it has done is diversify a phenomenon that has been present in the game since the day the servers opened and will continue until the day the servers close down.

If CCP implemented your dream where T1 was completely useless and T2 was the only thing worth flying the following would happen in short order:

* new and inexperienced players would find themselves unable to participate in any fleet as they wouldn't have the training for the current meta* people would have to sit in station for months on end training to get into their first T2 ship* those people would enter the battle field with no experience of eve mechanics at all* they would blow up.

Assuming they hung around and paid their subs for the months that would be required to become useful, they would unsub pretty quickly when they lost their first ship, one they likely had to plex to get into in the first place.

Your view on a homogenised, T2 beats T1, T3 beats T2, Capitals can roflstomp anything that is cheaper than them makes absolutely no sense. Your statement that somehow a behavior which has existed in eve since it's very beginning has recently changed eve into something which is heading down the road of wow is patently false.

I don't know how can you say tiercide is like wow, since it's exactly the opposite. In wow you count only if you have the latest gear. Everything else is rubbish. In eve, tiercide increased the variety of ships people can fly with sense. And what's wrong with that? People have greater choice to be meaningful.

Yes, Gevlon, since Tiericide, newly-made characters can be involved in significant battles and see a return on the only two investments that matter:

1)Did they pay for that month?2)Did they show up and let themselves be shot at?

If all you care about is the ability to get a killmail, then feel free to be incensed and irate that OH MY GOD SOMEONE ELSE MIGHT HAVE FUN NOW TOO.

If, on the other hand, you want to see people actually learning to use ships, to learn to PVP, then you should welcome the change, because now you can get into PVP without having it be an all-or-nothing event. The fact of the matter is that more people are willing to risk their butts earlier on in their EVE careers, rather than high-sec missioning and being risk-avoidant until they're in a Marauder that gets wiped out inside of 2 minutes because they haven't got a clue how to fit, or how PVP works.

That's a good thing, Gevlon. You're ranting and raving and carrying on about how oh my god, T1 ships are too powerful now, and how horrible it is that newbies can get killmails... so what? So what if they get killmails? Are you really saying that new players should be helpless prey animals for the first six months of their playtime?

Yeah, that will keep them playing.

Whining about how terrible it is that newbies can get killmails without being some kind of savant, able to slaughter "Elite PvP" in a vastly underpowered ship... dude, you're just coming across as petulant.

Tell me, is this the real reason you hate Goons, too? Because they take exactly the same stance CCP has: get newbees into ships that let them contribute, get them killmails, get them those ships for free, and get them having fun.

And that's a big part of why they've been so successful - not just at keeping their internal numbers high, but at motivating people to keep fleeting up, even when you insist 'having fun' couldn't possibly be a measurable objective during Fountain.

T1 ships aren't overpowered. They're just not underpowered anymore. It's no longer utterly pointless to get into PVP unless you're flying an interceptor, HAC, or 100MN Tengu. Your WoW analogy falls utterly flat - you went so far as to point out how in WoW, you can go ahead and get a fully raid group access to the biggest raid content in the game w/out having a clue. Go on then, try to get access to the biggest PVP in EVE with nothing but T1 cruisers. Take a T1 gang into Fountain, see how many systems you can take. Take a whole 256-man T1 fleet into W-space and try to evict someone from their C5.

Killmails are meaningless unless you obsess over them. Yeah, we made a lot of jokes after B-R about 'killboards green FOREVER', but you know what? Killing those titans wasn't the point. It was the means to an end.

The point was winning the damned war. And that still takes more than T1 cruisers.

No Gevlon, it wasn't the plan. Tiercide was just what we all are telling you. If by that some t1 ships got buffed, that's only a byproduct. The same thing will happen when t2 get rebalance. Instead of debuffing some previous t1,that were the only ones flown, all roles were redone and all shops equalized in power, more or less.

So to summarise this, is the issue you have that cost and effectiveness are not linear? Because that's normal in most games. Something twice the price will not be twice the effectiveness. A T2 costing 10x the amount of a T1 does not mean the T2 should be 10x as powerful, as that would leave the game in a position where only the richest would be able to remain in power. The way it works, as the cost increases, the increase in effectiveness decreases. Think of it like the way skills work with the 80/20 rule. You can get 80% of the benefit of a skill in 20% of the training time. That's not to say it's not better to have level 5 in a skill, just the time:effect ratio between level 4 -> 5 and 3 -> 4 is significantly higher. In the same way, T2 ships tend to be more powerful than their T1 counterparts, but not in a way that scales linearly with cost.

And sure, 2 T1s could probably do well against a lone T2, but surely that makes sense too. They are using a superior tactic by forming up and cooperating. If the T2 pilot were to do the same, he would have an advantage. Tiericide has significantly improved the skill tree to get into ships, and given each ship more of a unique identity, creating a variety in ship choice. Those are both good things.

@Arrendis: if all players who care to log in are entitled to be part of the "big stuff", what is the reason for anyone to perform at a higher level than that (logging in).

Protecting "newbies" is a popular, but pretty mis-aimed move. It protect veteran scrubs more, which exactly happens in both mentioned games.

I see you understand that T1 cruisers won't win a war. But you seeing it doesn't mean others see it, or even worse - care. I mean if you can have fun in a T1 cruiser, why should you give a damn about Fountain?! T1 cruisers are free (insurance), so you don't need ratting space to keep yourself in T1 cruisers.

The tiericide didn't kill nullsec or WH space, but made it more or less meaningless.

Players shouldn't be meaningful without a T2, pirate or T3 ships, because this forces them to care for the war. "If we lose this region, I won't be able to rat and can be unable to continue PvP". "If we lose this wormhole, no more T3 for me". Now, EVE players - just like WoW players - can just log in, have fun without being any good and log out. Then they get bored after a month, because MMOs are about building something long-term. Even the lowest guy builds something: his avatar and gear. "Welfare epics" destroys this aspect.

However it's not the worst problem. The worst problem is that I have to explain EVE players while copying the worst traits of WoW is bad.

The purple killboard is fed every hour by the red and blue corp APIs and his much more accurate than Zkillboard for tracking the lemmings vs RvB campaign. Oh and lemmings should really limit themselves to camping dodixie. This happens when they try to play with the big dogs http://purple.rvbeve.com/?a=kill_related&kll_id=712925

@Lucas: my problem is that the difference between T2 and T1 is so insignificant that flying anything but T1 in combat is simply a mistake. Flying T2 or pirate ship is like putting a deadspace hardener to a Rifter: ALOD, padding the killboard of the enemy.

My problem is that tiericide - despite its attempt to make ships all useful - DECREASED the number of useful ships. T2, T3 and pirate ships are simply no longer viable for PvP, they became solely ratting ships.

The problem extends to the fact that - unlike the EVE idea - T1 ships have no cost. You buy your first and you can fly it forever and ever due to insurance. This was intentional to allow newbies to learn without losses. But after tiericide it means risk-free PvP.

"T1 cruisers are free (insurance)"Just so we're clear, you know this is wrong right? You have to pay 30% for the insurance itself, then you receive the cost of the hull back, no mods. So even if you flew an empty ship it would still cost 30% of it's price to lose it.

You may be getting confused because the loss of a T1 is insignificant to you. But that's based on perception. I'd consider the loss of most T2s to be insignificant too, but that doesn't make them free. You couldn't throw 300 T1s at a single T2 variant of them, finally kill it, then yell "free kill!"

"The worst problem is that I have to explain EVE players while copying the worst traits of WoW is bad."Actually, I'd say the worst problem is that you can't see the clear differences between the two things you are comparing. I mean for starters, you win tangible rewards from WOW, and KB stats for EVE, which since most of us don't care about KB stats means you get nothing from EVE in this situation. You also don't lose points for your losses, but you do receive negative KB stats, which means a "win-lose-win-lose" grind in EVE would have negative consequences too.

The one part that is comparable is that in both situations, you won't end up as a winner. Getting KB stats means nowt, as does getting the best gear in wow if you suck at PvP.

"my problem is that the difference between T2 and T1 is so insignificant that flying anything but T1 in combat is simply a mistake. Flying T2 or pirate ship is like putting a deadspace hardener to a Rifter: ALOD, padding the killboard of the enemy."If you can't PVP and you just want to grind PvP stats, then sure. But if you are actually interested in PvP then the small benefits they have are incredibly useful, as is a deadspace hardener on a rifter if you fly it right and are willing to take that risk. People interested in PvP want to squeeze the absolute most out of their ships.

"The problem extends to the fact that - unlike the EVE idea - T1 ships have no cost. You buy your first and you can fly it forever and ever due to insurance."See previous post, this is totally wrong.

I mention pods because they bypass the "what is meaningful cost to you" problem. These pods were flown by the same people who flied the ships. They clearly could afford the pods, yet they choose to put their pod into a 1-5M frig or a 20-30M cruiser. Why? Because they saw no reason to put it into anything better.

After the tiericide in subcap engagements only the numbers matter. If your gang is smaller, you lost and your skills only matter in quickly running away, at least with your pod.

Funnily, if you keep your pod empty, like nullsec people do, after 1-2 years of playing, updating your clone could cost more than your ship.

This means that the T1 costs are meaningless to EVERYONE, compared his own pod and clone costs.

I think losing by that little is pretty impressive, yes. We have sooooo many people losing expensive pods in impressively stupid ways every war that I'm frankly amazed we're doing this well.

As for your claim that we're doctoring our KBs: Pay for a lemmings KB, feed by their corp APIs and you'll see the numbers match. Just like all our kills vs Marmite match exactly on their KBs and ours. Marmite, like us, at least understands that if you want exact KB stats you need to API feed a separate killboard. The public ones are always crap.

If you're reduced to claiming we're doctoring our stats you must be quite dissapointed in your little lemmings.

Well, Gevlon, to all those guys out there that just want to have fun in a T1 cruiser, I say: "Good on you!"

Seriously, they don't have the same goals I have. You know what I absolutely love in this terrible game? Anchoring logi in 10% tidi and soul-crushing lag, fighting against 2-3 enemy fleets on a broken grid. Do I expect everyone to enjoy that? Hell no. I don't even expect most logi pilots to enjoy those conditions. But I do.

I don't enjoy making money for the sake of making money. I don't enjoy caring about how much money I'm making. Others do. We each have different ways we enjoy the game, and my way isn't your way isn't 'Bob the faceless newbie's way.

And those guys having fun getting blown up in their T1s? They're making things fun for the people blowing them up, too. BNI's a great example: they'll go out and mix it up, totally unafraid, regardless of the odds. They're a bunch of baller nutjobs, and I love 'em for it, even if I want to shoot every one of them that crosses my path. Especially when I want to shoot every one of them that crosses my path! More people willing to go out and get shot means more people out there making the game fun for everyone who likes seeing spaceships explode.

Tiericide hasn't made W-space or nullsec meaningless at all. I don't derive my sense of self-worth from having a carrier, or from fitting out a bling-y tengu, and I didn't when I was living in W-space, either. What meaning did I find in W-space? I could have fun with guys I enjoyed being social with. What meaning am I finding out here in null? I can have fun with guys I enjoy being social with.

More importantly, what makes you think 'I won't be able to rat' is the motivation for nullsec wars? Do you think the CFC is currently in the Southeast because we want ratting rights? We're here because our enemies were here, and we wanted to take the opportunity the Halloween War presented to bend them over and introduce them to a stainless-steel spiked strap-on.

Fountain wasn't about ratting rights, either. It was about money, sure, but it was about money at the alliance and coalition-level, not at the pilot level. You know what kept us logging in through the worst parts of the PL/N3-supported segments of Fountain? What kept us logging in through the Wrecking Ball in Curse?

Pride. Stubborness. Spite.

Irrational things. The things that motivate the masses. Individuals can be rational. Groups almost never are.

Ultimately, the game is what you make of it, man. The guys who get bored after a month? They were gonna get bored after a month anyway. They were never going to stay, and if they did 'build something long-term', it wasn't going to be anything they were willing to PVP with - not for a year or more. I've known those guys, the risk-averse ones from before Tiericide who responded to a hi-sec wardec by safing up and logging out for 2 weeks. That's not fun. Not for them, not for the people looking for a fight. So why encourage 'not fun'?

Believe me, I understand where you're coming from when you say copying the worst traits of WoW is bad, and I agree. But I don't think you and I agree on what the 'worst traits of WoW' are.

WoW's a theme park - it's got certain avenues of linear progression, but each one (PvE questing, PvP battlegrounds, PvP Arenas, etc) is linear, and doesn't help you, really, in the others. Your example of getting access to the highest tiers of raiding w/crappy Arena strategy doesn't equate to success in those highest tiers. In fact, it pretty much assures failure - those people won't know the strats, they won't know their class, they won't have any way to really figure things out, and worst, they won't have the problem-solving skills to fix any of that.

What you're complaining about in EVE isn't that. You're complaining about allowing people to get into PvP and start learning at a lower threshold. Yes, they can get killmails without being especially good if they're ganging up on someone... but wait: ganging up on someone is a valid tactic. The Dogpile, the Blob, that's a winning strategy, in EVE and in reality: overwhelm with numbers. That's a valid, applicable lesson to learn.

But they won't get those killmails, not when they're outnumbered, not when they're at even numbers, if they aren't good, and their opponants are. Not in equivalent ships, and certainly not in ships that are individually outmatched. They'll lose, and I know you don't believe this, but insurance doesn't pay the full price of the ship. Not even for T1 ships. Not even the full price of the hull.

If it did, nullsec coalitions like the CFC, and alliances like TNT, wouldn't have SRP payouts for T1s: they wouldn't need to.

(Spoiler: we do have SRP payouts for T1s.)

And no, 'flying anthing but T1 in combat' is hardly a mistake. Better resists, better buffer, better fitting capabilities and bonuses... if you think flying T2 is a mistake, I enjoin you to please take that Vexxor fleet against a PL Ishtar fleet. I'll even fly an Augoror for you. Fight them at 4x their numbers. You will still be shredded, fast.

Do it with Ruppies vs. Munnins. Rifters vs. Wolves. Omens vs. Zealots. Any T1 cruiser gang you want against its T2 analog, and you'll lose. Badly.

However I can see why your killboard looks better than the truth without doctoring: whoring. I'm not even accusing with intentional whoring. Lemmings got on 45.9B ship and 23.6B pod kills in January, yet I say Lemmings killed 14.4B ships and 21.7B pods. Why? Because I dowloaded all Lemming kills and checked the damage distribution. A 3B dread kill with 1% damage from a whoring Lemming in HED-GP was booked as 30M damage.

Imagine a Lemming engaged a Goon, already at half HP, Red guy arrives and engages. The killboard gives the Lemming kill BOTH to Red and Goons, despite only one Lemming was killed.

This is an example to non-intentional whoring. I'd suggest to check your own killboard for kills that aren't really RvB kills. I did just that with the Lemmings and Marmite killboard, exactly because I won't pay for HED-GP whoring.

@Arrendis: so your point is that economy doesn't matter, people will still fight just for personal reasons. I accept that, especially when I'm fighting an obviously not profitable war against CFC right now.

But then, why bother with mining, industry, ship fitting at all? Wouldn't be EVE more fun if ships would just respawn at the spirit healer? If you agree with ship loss shouldn't be meaningful, why having losses at all? Just book the kill and let the ship respawn so the player continues to have fun. If this design is bad, why having ships with near-zero costs but significant power is good?

1. A 2700+ rated player is wearing 522 gear.2. Gevlon is wearing 522 gear (because it is easy to acquire).3. Therefore, Gevlon is as awesome as a 2700+ player.

This kind of argument belongs to a subset of logical fallacies known as non sequitors, in which the conclusion does not necessarily follow its premises. This argument is as equally worthless as something like this:

1. Morons and slackers play EVE.2. Gevlon plays EVE.3. Therefore, Gevlon is a moron and slacker.

Both are bad arguments, and for someone who continually appeals to rationalism in his blog it is just sloppy thinking. It is the player's rating that makes them "awesome", not their gear. You already know this, because why else did you link a 2700+ player as opposed to someone who has 1550+ or 1750+? You could link someone with no Arena achievements at all, and show that they, too, are wearing 522 gear. Does that make you as bad as them because you are wearing the same gear? Of course not, because it is a rubbish argument.

Secondly, the statement "dancing named is the way to get the highest available PvP rewards" is only true if the acquisition of gear is the sole aim of rated play in WoW. I would argue however, that people who play ladder PvP in WoW do so in order to improve their position on the leader board. Acquiring gear is just a means to an end. The highest available PvP rewards do not come from the level of your gear, but in titles and achievements and the kudos associated with it. PvPers in Arena play for the titles Gladiator (top 0.5%), Duelist (0.5-3%), Rival (3-10%) and Challenger (10-35%). If you play for Rated BGs the top honours go to people who have the Field Marshal rank (2400+). For those not in the top tier like myself, we play to improve our personal best rating, and derive satisfaction from crossing off PvP milestones (i.e. pushing from 1550+ to 1750+ or pushing from 1800+ to 1900+). These are the true rewards of rated play, not the acquisition of gear which recycles season after season.

As evidence I would point to the following websites - Arenacarry.com, Boosting.pro and www.arenarating.eu. These websites are examples of places where people pay real money to get boosted to higher ratings. Clearly people don't value gear at all - you don't see websites selling gear, do you? - but they prize rating so highly that some are willing to pay real money for it. This is plainly cheating, but my point is that people who play PvP in WoW value rating, not gear. The highest PvP rewards in WoW are the titles and rank and the prestige associated with them, not the ilevel of your gear as you would argue.

Ah, but I didn't say it shouldn't be meaningful. If the kills weren't meaningful, how could you actually beat another group in large-scale PVP? If, for example, TEST hadn't had to deal with the economic side of things, they'd have been in a far better position to mount a continuing defense than they were, even with your donation program.

What I'm saying is that economics shouldn't be a barrier to entry. Ships that have near-zero cost but significant power let the new player get their feet wet, and whet their appetites for more. When that Vaga goes screaming past, the Stabber pilot wants it - unless he's already got his eye on a Cynabal, of course.

And the price tag for incremental increases in performance is always larger than the increase itself. Consider modules: T1 to T2 improvement is more than the improvement moving from T2 to Deadspace, or Officer mods. Meta 0 to Meta 4 is more of a jump than Meta 4 to Meta 5 (T2). Prices outpace improvement, because we're competitive, and we drive demand to that degree.

But the economics are hopelessly skewed in favor of the larger player - the goon who can run a 500b recruitment scam on his 3rd day (and they have pulled it off that quick) will never feel the same cash crunch that a truly new player does if he gets blown up 3 days in. Not just because he's suddenly rich, but because hey, he's a goon - his fleet losses are SRP'd. His frigates come free from the mentor program. He can afford to go on frigate roams every day and never pay a dime above clone costs - and for the first week or two, those are free, too.

Where economics will matter isn't in making PVP losses hurt - the simple fact is that to a reasonably new player, the amount that insurance doesn't cover usually is a significant monetary hit - but in stopping people from getting into it in the first place. Lowering the bar gets more people in, and that's the only way you combat high-sec carebearing: by giving those people the chance to get a taste for blood.

The economics will still matter. Small players won't want to lose ships. Medium 'PVP-minded' groups will glower over isk efficiency stats on killboards. Alliances and Coalitions that can't afford to replace losses will suffer. But the first hit should always be free. Get 'em in. Get 'em hooked. Then suck 'em dry.

@Duke: titles and "kudos" is coming from the community. The game itself doesn't hold that 2700 druid higher than me, which is obviously wrong.

@Arrendis: this would be fair with frigates. But it extends to cruisers and battleships, things that can change sov.

But more importantly: you can PvP in WoW, WoT, LoL and practically every single game out there. Those games have better graphics, their server don't lag out or crashes. Why would anyone play EVE if he can get the SAME thing in WoW: instant, meaningless PvP. After all, you have ratings (killboard) in WoW too.

"Don't you think it's not exactly balanced design? I mean your ability to instawarp your pod affects your losses 2-3x higher than your ability to fly spaceships."No, I don;t think that's bad design at all. Lemmings got those kills though a particular method, much like how you buffed your KB though miner ganking. There are ways to buff your killboard, if that is the only thing you want to do. But you don;t get anything for getting that killboard. CCP aren't going to turn around and say "hey, you won EVE!" which is why it really doesn't matter if there are ways to play the system.

"I mention pods because they bypass the "what is meaningful cost to you" problem. These pods were flown by the same people who flied the ships. They clearly could afford the pods, yet they choose to put their pod into a 1-5M frig or a 20-30M cruiser. Why? Because they saw no reason to put it into anything better."I imagine a lot of the "why" comes down to lack of options. I don't have a single cheap pod in highsec on my main. Over time you build up various pods, since implants are consumable, you can't take them back out without destroying them. With the ability to save a pod 9 times out of 10, I'd rather fly an expensive pod, giving me a 10% chance of loss than rip out all of the implants to save on kb stats, giving me a 100% chance of loss.

And of course there's a reason to put in in something better, just not all the time. If you are going to fly into a fight where you are heavily outnumbered and likely to die, there's no need to go all out on a ship. You can have a bit of fun in a t1. Even though either way you could afford the loss, there's no reason to simply throw isk away if you know it's going to be destroyed.

"After the tiericide in subcap engagements only the numbers matter. If your gang is smaller, you lost and your skills only matter in quickly running away, at least with your pod."OK, let's see a Vengeance vs 2 Punishers. A half decent Vengeance pilot would rip them to pieces before they even began the fight. As for the previously mentioned Ishtar, watch the video CCP tweeted: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPkYdS31eYc. When you know how to use the advantages of the t2 ships they can do very well. The ability to fly your own ship and the ability to understand how your opponent needs to fly is often an advantage. What a T2 ship gives you is that edge to tip the balance further in your favour. If you are more able and were going to win anyway, you'll win by a bigger margin. If it was going to be a close call, it widens that gap. Think of it like the mining barges, which I know you've looked into from your previous posts. If you are willing to take the risk on a hulk over a covetor, you get a 5% gain for about 8 times the cost. But that 5% gives you the edge over the T1. If you know how to fly a hulk and avoid being killed, you are better off than the covetor.

"This means that the T1 costs are meaningless to EVERYONE, compared his own pod and clone costs."They aren't meaningless though are they? I've even seen Lemmings struggling for cash because they lost T1s. Not everyone has a huge bankroll to fall back on, so losing a ship might mean they can't afford another.

"Why would anyone play EVE if he can get the SAME thing in WoW: instant, meaningless PvP."Did you even read the post this was in response to? You are the only one stating that it is meaningless, because you refuse to accept that "fun" is something people strive to have. PVP in EVE is strikingly different from any other game. It's a lot more based on know-how and strategy over raw reaction time and items. As Arrendis has said several times over, EVE allows people to engage in combat an stand a reasonable chance early on, allowing people to enjoy the time they area learning and growing their character skills rather than just having the options of "get dunked" vs "grind items". The way ships and modules are scaled complement that school of thought.

The thing I like most about EVE is that there isn't simply "the way" to play. All the way from beginner to end-game, there are a plethora of choices. It's not just a case of saying "Well I'm this class therefore x, y and z are the best weapons and armor to get. TO THE GRIND!".

Maybe I should reformulate "meaningless". T1 is meaningless to lose to anyone who isn't a total scrub. I don't mean it's meaningless to everyone.

Similarly I'm sure Blizzard devs were telling the truth that "5-man dungeons are too hard for random groups and they wipe a lot". They told it long after everyone with a clue was farming them. Their choice was to nerf 5-mans to the level of scrubs.

I see the rebalance as a nerf to make impact PvP accessible to total idiots who are DEFINED AS people who don't see T1 costs pocket change.

You have to realize that certain playing styles work with T1 very well.

As mentioned above, insurance does not cover all costs, in fact for a T2 fit frigate it's not even 10%. Some people don't want to spend hours hunting for a fight nor spend hours in TiDi. In the amount of time a lowsec pirate has spent to get a fight, I've had five or even ten.

In my time as a moderately active RvB player I've lost over 300 ships. Very active RvB members have losses in the thousands of ships. Flying mostly T1 ships isn't Loling about, it's a rational choice.

I'd posit that for the game devs, pleasing RvB is definitely a rational choice. RvB is out there losing ships.

That means RvB is driving demand for the industry characters, and providing content for the PvPers, both. So, just as a dollar in the hands of someone who's poor (and thus, will spend every dollar) is more economically productive than a dollar in the hands of someone who's unimaginably wealthy (and thus, saves/invests the vast majority of their wealth - which is still economically productive, but not as economically productive as recirculation), RvB's contribution to the game's internal ecosystem is larger than their absolute numbers.

You are slightly full of shit in this post. T1 Destroyers were never bad and T1 Cruisers were mostly just good for PVE but they were also viable in PVP just overshadowed, not by T2 ships but by Battle Cruisers that were nearly as fast, had better tank and hit harder. The Buff of T1 Cruisers happened at the same time most of the BCs got a bit of nerf.

HACs and Recons are specialty ships with specific purposes in mind and in those niches they do well against T1 generalist hulls, but for example try to Brawl a Zealot with an Omen and you'll get your ass kicked.

Sometimes you make sense, sometimes you come off like an asshole, and sometimes you're totally incorrect. This time you're totally incorrect. I suggest you try actually flying these ships before you talk about them.

I don't think they have rebalanced the t2 pirate ships yet. I know that they just finished the maruaders so next should be a nice buff to pirate faction ships. Remember the ccp creed take t1 ship that costs y. make the next better ship only 25% but cost 3 times as much and then do it again to the next better ship in class. For instace the caracal is cheap as snot, the navy caracla isn't, the Heavy Assault cruisers are even more expensive (here the line gets blurred because as I said before I don't recall the pirate ships being reblanced yet) so for 50% advantage (max) you have to pay 9 times as much if not more. Compare the cost of that t1 ship to its top end t2/3 ship. I am curious to see what ccp does for the pirates judging by the new soe ships I don't have high hope for another 25% buff.

I don't mean our little POCO empire. I don't even mean the huge quantity of materials we destroy. Rather, I mean the Eve universe that matters, IE the community.

RvB provides an important service to eve players. It may not be as formal as say Red Frog, but we give near instant pvp to anyone. This has a positive impact on eve, as it allows new players or curious carebears to experience pvp, it gives various players a change of pace, and it is a good home for many.

Maybe I should reformulate "meaningless". T1 is meaningless to lose to anyone who isn't a total scrub.

I'm a relatively wealthy wormhole player, and I can tell you that while i wouldn't care how many T1 or T2 frigates and cruisers I lost, losing a handful of properly fit battleships in a few hours is noticeable.

Gevlon: You continuously use the word scrub, and yet I am certain that what you mean when you use it is entirely different to what most other people do. Are you attempting to state that your skill in eve is directly correlated to the size of your wallet?

I can't speak for PvP, although I assume that equal gear there is a baseline and acquiring said gear is akin to the tutorial/dailies grind, the real rewards are end-of-season-top-X%-titles/mounts/whatever.But as for PvE, it goes like this:(SoO - Siege of Orgrimmar, last tier raid, ToT - Throne of Thunder, prev. tier raid)

Everyone can get to the ToT/SoO LFR and everyone can kill LFR Garrosh (last boss). This does not matter a bit, because SoO LFR is not really a raid. It's a gearing tool.

So yes, without setting a foot in a [Gearing Tool], anyone is qualified to get into said [Gearing Tool] and get Gear with minimal effort. Just like BC Normals. To get to the equivalent of BC Heroics, one will need a bit more time and once there he will have a chance of wiping, but better/better geared players will carry him. Again, just like BC Heroics (post-nerf).This is close to the ceiling for the scrub, since Flex leaders will kick him after 1-3 bosses. This is equivalent to clearing Heroich Mechanar (even pre-nerf it was really easy) or Attumen the Huntsman (and then being kicked on Moroes). Here the line is pretty much drawn. An incompetent scrub can either be hardcarried or improve to get past that.

My point is: Blizzard arrived, after a long time of searching, back to the BC model, only in a very good disguise. - To get to the real raids you need to actually understand your class/role/buttons (but everyone who is interested in PvE is a 'raider' now)- There are clear progression signs, like Flex/Normal Garrosh for those who want to see (but everyone sees the content at least once)- Stratification is achieved - hard raider will never have to 'experience' M&S because of the genius that is personal loot system in LFR/Flex (but he will still 'carry' them through LFR if he wants to go there)

The masterstroke will come with 6.0 when Flex is dubbed Normal and Normal is dubbed HMm because people who do not belong in raids will not even want to go there (HMs are for tryhard nolifers afterall).

- WOW is a PVE game. But you can log in and queue a BG, wait a few minutes and there you go, you can PVP.- EVE is a PVP game. But you cannot log in to enter a few minutes long queue to have some PVP action. Anything meaningful takes up to hours to arrange/farm to replace.

I've followed your blog for a long while, you make some intersting points which I agree, but sometimes I'm not sure what you're thinking.

I really think you're overreacting with the T1 ship quality. I agree that insurance could go away, but I can't think of any T2 ship that is not miles ahead of its T1 counterparts. Look at Interceptors vs Attack frigates, Assault frigs vs Combat frigs, HACs versus T1 cruisers, how is their T1 version remotely better or even close? They have much better resists, EHP, double bonuses, unique ship bonuses, better slot layouts, anything I can think of. T1 battleships are especially bad compared to blops or pirate versions, completly outmatched even.

But other than that, I agree with the progressive dumbing down of "lol gf never wanted that ship anyway" mentality. While it's fun to find an interesting fight from time to time, I'm of the oppinion that you will eventually have any "good fights" you want if both you and the opponent are equally non-scrubs at the game and come at you with everything they have. That's what makes a competitive game fun, not pointless "lol 1v1s".